Hello mama, I'm home

More and more, access control and other home automation stuff are being used and required. We are giving away part of our privacy to prior security and commodity.

Bluetooth is a technology for wireless file transfer very spread today in cell phones, but most people don't know that it can be used to identify someone through the unique address each Bluetooth enabled device has. For example, if you see a number like "00:12:62:F8:E1:0C", be sure it's my cell phone.

So, to show this, I did a very simple experiment using Java SE, a Bluetooth (BT) enabled cell phone and an Arduino Board. The project is very simple: the Java SE application uses Project Marge, Avetana JSR-82 Implementation and a Bluetooth USB adapter to search for available devices in area. Once a registered device enter in area, like my cell phone, the Java App sends a signal through the USB port to the Arduino board (mapped as a tty device at Linux), which then interprets the signal and turns on a green LED ( light-emitting diode).

Arduino is a very cool an easy to use open-source electronic prototyping platform. The Arduino Board, part of the project, is a no expensive board based on the ATmega168 micro controller, giving the programmer a big sort of IOs and the possibility to communicate with a computer thought an USB cable (this in the version I have, cause there are Bluetooth and serial versions of the board). This boards can be assembled by hand or purchased preassembled. There is also an IDE, writen in Java, which helps developing the software that will run in the board.

Turn on a LED is a very basic thing, but imagine all the stuff that can be done: turn on or off several other gadgets, notify someone that you present in that place, update you cell phone with some kind of information, etc